Within a half hour, I got a story rejected. My original Jolt Finder story must be lost or something. Pending for almost FOUR MONTHS now.

Here is the rejected story:

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It appears that Jolt Cola has changed their product line. Instead of old fashioned 20th Century era plastic bottles, Jolt will now be found in a high-tech 21st Century "battery can". The new can has interesting features such as a "power meter" made of thermosensitive ink that let you know how much Jolt is left in your battery. With the new cans come a new logo. I will miss the old one.

The flavor line up has changed as well. The five flavors are Jolt Cola, Blue, Cherry Bomb, Ultra, and Red. I have not been able to find a press release from Wet Planet, so I do not know if the well loved flavors of Citrus Climax, Orange Blast, and White Lightning have been discontinued.

My web application Jolt Finder might be able to help you locate this hard to find cola, but its not likely.

Jolt Finder is an experiment in community-built databases, much like the The International Book List. The idea is to get many, many people to register as "Jolt Finders" and enter into the database the location(s) where they buy Jolt Cola. Then anyone can come along later and search for locations that sell Jolt where they live (or perhaps where they are visiting, or passing through on a road trip). Since I started collecting data on September 23rd, a mere 21 locations have been registered. I suspect the users of slashdot can help Jolt Finder uncover many more.

Here is the article I submitted on Monday October 18, @03:39PM and is still pending. I am submitting a Jolt related story today, and hope that people may click on my journal and see it.

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Lets face it, Jolt Cola is not the easiest product to find. Sure the Jolt Cola web site does have a Product Locator, but it is unable to give actual store locations, just the contact information for the distributors in your state. It is up to you to then contact the distributor yourself, and figure out with them where Jolt is sold closest to your house (or job, or social club, or whatever). This can have mixed results.

Because of this, I wrote a web application called Jolt Finder. Jolt Finder is an experiment in community-built databases, much like the The International Book List. The idea is to get many, many people to register as "Jolt Finders" and enter into the database the location(s) where they buy Jolt Cola. Then anyone can come along later and search for locations that sell Jolt where they live (or perhaps where they are visiting, or passing through on a road trip). Since I started collecting data on September 23rd, a mere 9 locations have been registered. I suspect the users of slashdot can help Jolt Finder uncover many more.

One of my favorite thing to do on slashdot is to find unfair mods of "troll" in meta-moderating. I have one -1 Troll post, and I think it unfair, so I take glee, when I see an unfair rating of troll, I really do.

So I was lead to believe that story submissions would be accepted or rejected in hours. Its been two days. I'm hoping this is a good sign, that maybe they are "saving it" for a slow day (is there such a thing?) or as a "quickie" whatever that is.

So I see something totally clueless in a slashdot user's.sig the other day:

10 Bits= $.25 100 Bits= $.50 110 Bits= $.75 1000 Bits= 1 byte

Man this guy is wrong on so many fronts. If it is suppossed to be a joke, the humor has escaped me. The math is bad. The conversions incorrect. But it did trip my mind into thinking of the relationship between the shave and hair cut, 2 bits, and 8 bits in a Byte.

So the quick conversion:

Money: 2 bits = $0.25 Data: 8 bits = 1 byte

I was told early in my education that the term BIT was a contraction of "Binary DigIT". Made sense to me, but thinking about it, I realized that when related to coins, a "bit" was 1/8th. Just as a single bit is 1/8th of a Byte. So I am now wondering if the person who coined the term bit meant 1/8th, and the Binary digIT was an added-on kludge later on.

Now the money bits comes from the day when you could "make change" by actually cutting your coins. The simplist way was to halve it, then halve the halves, then halve those, which gave you 8 pieces and was about all that was practical. This is where "Pieces of Eight" that we hear about in all those songs about pirates come from. So two bits is 2/8ths, or 1/4th hence $0.25 when we are bitting-up a dollar.

Many of the terms used in computing were and are puns. When Computer Science was young, and run by acedemics instead of money-makers this was much more wide-spread than it is today. I'm thinking "BIT" is another one of these puns, it just never occured to me that it was anything other than Binary digIT.

Current Mood: contemplative

EDIT: Its been pointed out to me that the 10, 100, 110, 1000 is the sig is BINARY. Duh me.

Hear ye, Hear ye, the founder of the Liberty and Networking Party (LAN Party) will now shoot off the cuff and craft the Platform version 1.0 Beta! Know ye that comments are welcome!

1 : Social IssuesSocial Issues are based upon the assertion that the United States of America is the Richest Nation on Earth, and that a LAN Party government would use these resources for the benefit of all citizens, residents, and temporary visitors.

Don't Be Evil

If you are hungry, you will eat, no matter your income or lack thereof.

If you are sick or injured, you will become well again no matter your income or lack thereof.

If you are being rained upon, you will have a roof over your head, no matter your income or lack thereof.

Food, Health Care, and Shelter will be the best that can be provided.

If you wish to work, you will have a job utilizing your abilities, and fairly compensated for said work.

If you want want to learn, you will be taught, no matter your income or lack thereof.

Private Enterprise is encouraged to compete with the government to provide these things to the citizenry, but if found to be evil will be disenfranchised, their clients receiving equal or better services from the government until such time they decide to leave the government program(s) and seek services from the private sector again.

10 : Civil Rights

Don't Be Evil

If it does not harm others, yourself, property, or society, it should be legal or decriminalized.

Religious principles will never be the sole basis of any law.

The Government will see marriage as a binding contract between people that have decided to hold property in common, share financial burdens, and assignment of a spouse as next of kin, and holder of all the rights entitled to next of kin.

The Gender of those in the marriage contract has no bearing on the contracts validity.

The number of participants in a marriage contract must be any number greater than one.

One can only belong to a single marriage contract at a time.

When joining an existing marriage, one is married to all the participants of the marriage equally, as they are all married to one another equally.

One may leave a marriage contract (divorce or annulment) without dissolving the marriage itself, as long as two or more people remain in the marriage.

The LAN Party will strive to re-strengthen the First and Fourth Amendments to the Constitution of the United States. Any laws that can weaken these amendments or any other civil right(s) will be voted nay in the legislature and not signed by the executive.

There will be established a body whose function is to enforce the Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA), with the power to conduct inspections (with warrant, do not forget the 4th!) fine non-compliant businesses and close businesses until they become compliant. If a business cannot afford to become compliant, they will be given a government grant to do so.

There will be an oversight committee in the legislature with the responsibility of guarding the established and implied civil rights of the American Public.

11 : Environmental Policy

Don't be Evil.

We don't give a shit about how entrenched oil companies are, or how much money they have, or how much money they will lose if we move to an economy based on cleaner, renewable energy sources for our power needs. They are welcome to remain in business as long as their product is in demand or petroleum remains in the ground.

Burning stuff for energy is not sustainable in the long run, nor is it particularly efficient. We will encourage the development of many energy sources that does not require burning stuff, or if we are gonna burn something, let it be a resource that is renewable, or in such great quantities will last the population of the Planet Earth until the sun goes nova.

Technology that will clean, inexpensive energy will be strongly encouraged, and funded well.

Trees are nice to look at, and they make oxygen. Let's leave the old ones where they stand. If you must use lumber for your products, grow your own. In the meantime, any trees you take, must be replaced by the current or following spring, whichever is sooner

Our waterways are nice to look at, swim in, they give us something to drink, and help grow our food. Let's keep them as clean as technologically possible, by cleaning current pollutants and keeping them from becoming further polluted.

Our atmosphere does many things for us, and we need it. Let's keep it as clean as technologically possible. No more allowances for pollutants. Any process that emits particles into the air will be the cleanest technological possible. If you can afford it, you will upgrade at your own expense (feasibility to be determined by the government (loss of expected profit is not a valid justification) ) otherwise a grant will be awarded for needed upgrades.

100 : Information & Data Policy

Don't Be Evil.

You jointly own any information or data about yourself with whoever generates the information or data

When information about you is gathered you will be notified that it happened and who by.

When information or data about you is accessed you will be notified that it happened and who by.

You have the right to see, retain, and correct any information gathered about you.

If information or data about you is sold, you get a cut of the sale.

Copyrights will not last forever. Steamboat Willy WILL be put in the public domain. No more extensions for Mickey Mouse.

Work For Hire will be abolished and replaced with Work for Rent. Corporations may only rent and no longer own creative works. The Creator of a Work may rent it to whomever he or she chooses, but will retain the rights to said work. Only the original creator(s) of a work may hold copyright on it.

The patenting of naturally occurring phenomena or constructs (such as genes) will cease, and all existing patents of this kind made invalid. Discovering that something is so is not the same as invention.

The patenting of natural, logical, and intended uses and applications of software or programing languages or mark-up languages will be forbidden, and such patents already existing will be busted.

101 : Election Policy & Reform

All ballots used in elections must have a human-readable, voter confirmed, hard copy either as a primary ballot or as a back-up copy to be used in the event of a recount, or auditing of electronically recorded votes.

Electronic Voting Machines will be open source, and publicly audited.

Voter Registration and Voting Procedures will be standardized across the entire United States, all 3,143 Counties, Parishes, and Independent Cities.

The right of a citizen of the United States of America to vote for the President of the United States of America will be guaranteed. As it stands, there is no federal law stating so.

Reformation of the Electoral College system.

The Electoral College will become automated.

Electoral Votes will be proportional to the votes of the State's voters. If 40 percent of popular votes went to one candidate, 50 percent to another and 10 percent to a third, the Electoral Votes will divided along the same lines.

Electoral Votes will be established to represent Citizens not living in a state.

We will move towards Proportional Representation, hopefully ending the two-party strangle-hold on the legislature

.

110 : Foreign & Domestic Policy

Don't be Evil.

The power to wage war will return to the hands of the Legislature, and such powers will be taken from the Executive. If you want to go to war, you will have to justify your vote to your constituents, and cannot pass the buck to the President. We support a constitutional amendment to prevent the President usurping such powers and preventing congress from giving them up.

Help those other countries that require it the best we can, but not to the detriment of our own nation.

111 : Technology Policy

Don't Be Evil

Technology is good. Lets have lots of it. Lets have the best.

Access to the Internet should be unlimited and total for all.

No one should be kept from computers because of a lack of money.

Bureaucrats will not have the power to make rules that will break the net. Technocrats will make the rules, and if the nets break, they will be fired, replaced, and the rules repealed.

"Because its never been done" or "its scary" will not be basis to ban research or the introductions of new technology.

Technology that will cause an end to the world as we know it will be banned if evil, but encouraged if good. And the evil stuff will be looked at again later.

So, I can no longer support the Libertarian party. It was a good ride, but in the ideal Libertarian world, we would have Liberties, yes, but Wal Mart would run the world. No thank you.

I cannot find a third party that describes my political view. So I am thinking of starting my own. It would be some kind of Libertarian-Socialism with a big helping of techno-love, and free information. I was dreaming of a politcal party based on the hacker ethic. I thought it could be called "The Hacker Party" but I don't think its the best name, and I would have to spend too much time explaining my definition of Hacker, that its just not worth it. The Geek Party would be to limited in scope. Then I came up with the name:

The Liberty And Networking Party

Ofcourse most of the time we would just shorten "Liberty And Networking" into an acronym...

Born in 1972, Johnny is one of the younger of the old-school hackers, or one of the older "whiz kids", take your pick. He wrote his first program in BASIC on an Apple II when he was 6 years old.
On September 23, 2004 he took the community-built database experiment / project Jolt Finder out of Beta. Don't look for it now, its gone.
His latest project is flynnOS, An Open Source Operating System for running and connecting to Virtual Worlds.
On January 1, 2011 he published the paper "Networked Communication of Second LifeÂ® Objects using LSL, php, and MySQL." which can be found at http://flynnos.org/Networked%20Communication%20of%20Second%20Life%20Objects.pdf